KC Confidential

Glenn E. Rice

And now, the story the Kansas City Star doesn’t want Steve Penn to tell…

After spending more than two hours poring over legal filings by the fired Star columnist and powerhouse lawyers for the newspaper, there are at least three potentially powerful points of attack the Star wants desperately to avoid having to defend itself against in court.

Let’s take a look.

First and foremost they absolutely, positively do not want Penn to call Star reporter Glenn E. Rice to the stand. That’s because Rice – like Penn was, is one of the newspaper’s very few African American writers. And he was involved in one of – if not the – most high profile plagiarism scandals at the newspaper in my 16 years at the Star.

That’s right, straight down the line stealing from another published journalist plagiarism. Continue reading →

Sometimes it takes a while for something truly godawful to sink in…

So it is that it took a day for the comedy club main man you fondly know as the Scribe to come to terms with this year’s Kansas City Chiefs in the wake of last night’s loss to Denver.

“Think about it,” Glazer says. “Who in the NFL has a worse offense than us? They say this is the worst 9-0 NFL team ever, but no, it isn’t. It was the other 9-0 Chiefs team in 2003. You know, they’re playing a below average San Diego team this Sunday at Arrowhead and I think they’re going to be lucky to win that game.”

Here’s the Chiefs problem in a nutshell: Continue reading →

Forget about fat lady’s singing, truth, justice and the American way…

Axed Kansas City Star columnist Steve Penn’s defamation lawsuit against his former employer was “voluntarily dismissed” this morning in Jackson County Court.

Without prejudice…meaning Penn can (and apparently will) refile the case as soon as a certain key witness’s mother either passes away or gets better.

“A witness Plaintiff believes is critical to a fair presentation of the issues called Plaintiff’s counsel to advise that the witness’ elderly mother had fallen and hit her head, with uncertain prognosis, and that the witness was on his way to be with his mother and could not be available for trial,” reads Penn’s filing. Continue reading →

Step aside, Kansas City Chiefs apologists…

You know who you are; Kansas City Star columnists Sam Mellinger and Vahe Gregorian. Because quite frankly, disingenuous front page headlines like “Loss certainly stings, but it doesn’t have to be the defining moment of the Chiefs’ season” and “Loss Hurts But Chiefs Are Still Strong” accomplish little other than to console the deluded among us.

That’s because in last night’s game between the previously unbeaten locals and the Denver Broncos, “The Chiefs were never in that game other than the fumble they picked up early,” says Stanford’s Craig Glazer. “Denver won that game from wire-to-wire. The bottom line is the Chiefs are an OK team, but they’re so fucking boring it’s hard to watch them.”

Why then the chorus of apologists? Continue reading →

What’s that dated axiom about throwing everything against the wall to see what sticks?

I’m no legal expert, but after spending more than two hours pouring over the legal filings between former Kansas City Star columnist Steve Penn and KC’s newspaper of record, I’m having a hard time coming up with one of Penn’s possible arguments that the Star didn’t file a motion to exclude.

Why confuse the jury by letting Penn get his side of the story in? Continue reading →

The legal bees in the 18th and Grand news hive have been buzzing for weeks….

That’s because axed Kansas City Star columnist Steve Penn‘s defamation lawsuit against the newspaper is set to go to trial on Monday. Penn, you may recall, was fired by the Star in July of 2011 for “using press release material verbatim without attributing the sources.”

One year later Penn file his lawsuit in Jackson County Circuit Court claiming the newspaper “damaged his reputation and future job and business prospects” by announcing his dismissal and suggesting he’d engaged in “professional misconduct.”

Penn’s lawsuit claims the Star was wrong and he had not engaged in professional misconduct because quoting from press releases without attribution was a common practice at the Star.

Well, the you-know-what appears ready to hit the fan. Continue reading →

The One & Only Dr. Dent

Doctor Who, Dr. John, Dr. Kildare, Dr. Jekyll, Dr. Doolittle…to name but a few. However with all due respect, those dudes were all fictional, as in not real people. You may even have heard of the Rug Doctor, but that’s just a California company that doesn’t even trace its own roots back to an actual person, you know, like a doctor.

Which brings us to Dr. Dent, “Kansas City’s Premiere Paintless Dent Repair Shop.”

Hey, I always figured like the other phony “doctors,” there was no actual Dr. Dent. It was probably just another clever name for a local company specializing in repairing dings and dents in cars using special tools that sidestep the need to pay exorbitant body shop bills. Continue reading →